Binders full of women and other reasons to keep Mitt around

By October 17, 2012 at 12:29 PM

I don’t know how I feel about Mitt Romney as a president, but I do love him as a candidate, and I wish he could run every year.

Thanks to the neverending news cycle, which has stations running countdown clocks on the debate and includes CNN offering a live wire on undecided voters, we’ve been subjected to Romney winning the longest game of “Survivor” to get the nomination, and we’ve been treated to so many sound bytes from candidates that are so wooden, you expect them to start shedding leaves in the coming weeks. But Romney really has a gift for waking me from an apathetic haze (which is at least partly the fault of Irish whiskey, I suppose) and laughing along at the punch lines.

I really thought Romney hit a high-water mark in the first debate, when he said he’d fire Big Bird and essentially told Jim Lehrer he was next on the chopping block, even though Lehrer did more to help Romney in that debate than even the professorial, disengaged Barack Obama. But when a Mormon is onstage talking about binders full of women, you know you’ve struck paydirt.

So while I’m not excited about President Romney — although I’m about as thrilled with his opponent — I am really a fan of candidate Romney, especially since he’s reinvented himself so often that he’s on pace to have more patents than Thomas Edison by Election Day. But what would he do in the four — OK, two — years between presidential elections? Here are some ideas, Mitt, in case you lose:

– “X Factor” judge. Not that I really think he’d be a great judge of singing voices, but I would love to hear him interrupt Simon Cowell in mid-diatribe, then insist on having the last word on each performer because someone else got to go first.

– “Sesame Street” character. Don’t you think “Sesame Street” needs a lovable accountant-type figure to bring a sense of morality to young viewers? Like, say all the characters were going to have a surprise party for the letter “P,” and Mitt shows up at the last minute and tells them that, due to budget cuts, not only is the party off, but Elmo and Grover need to share a room and Oscar will have to move out?

– Starbucks barista. There’s something very Romney about being inside a Starbucks — the worldwide corporate giant posing as a mom-and-pop roaster. I think it would be great to have him overhear you complaining about how slow the line is moving, and hear him offer his five-point plan on how to get people their triple shot, no whip, extra dry latte up to five minutes faster without raising taxes.

– Running mate to Chris Christie. The only downfall to this is we would never see a debate between Romney and Joe Biden, which might be a good thing, since such a debate likely would be the mathematic equivalent of dividing by zero.